Chapter 110
“Luna, we’re in big trouble! This is no time to sleep!”
“Yaaawn... It’s still the middle of the night, and you’re saying it’s no time to sleep...? What are you talking about, Giselle...”
“How can you say that after hearing this alarm...?”
The siren’s wail left Giselle’s ears ringing, and she looked pityingly at her carefree roommate.
Only after donning the ice cloak that was practically her trademark could Luna finally shake off her fatigue.
“So what happened this time?”
“There’s an attacker at the Academy!”
“An attacker? Are they insane?”
Luna’s question was perfectly reasonable.
Indeed, just as no one would call a zebra that willingly crawled into a crocodile’s mouth an attacker, it was difficult to call anyone sane who declared themselves an attacker in the place where the Empire’s forces were most concentrated.
Explosions and screams came from outside the window.
Luna frowned and asked in a cold voice.
“They still haven’t caught them?”
“I guess the opponent is no joke... The dean even ordered all of us first-years to mobilize!”
“How many are there?”
There were a thousand elite soldiers formally dispatched by the Empire and assigned to the Academy. On top of that, there were dozens of Academy professors. Including staff and students, a simple calculation put the total at well over several hundred.
Luna’s calculating nature came in handy as she roughly estimated the enemy’s numbers.
“One...”
“Whaaat?”
Yet Giselle’s simple, straightforward answer completely shattered that estimate.
“They say it’s one girl around our age...”
“...Did some kind of demon descend?”
* * *
Name and the Academy personnel spread out and faced one another in a standoff.
The students were not the only ones swallowing nervously at the atmosphere that seemed to promise a major battle at any moment.
-Is something big coming?
-Thump thump thump thump thump thump
-Picking the option to go save her really does mean game over lol
-Is it really necessary for hundreds of you to come swarming out just to catch one person? The Remnant Academy truly is legendary
-Thanks to NoName, it feels like we’re getting a taste of nearly every Nightmare story in Part 1
-They say it was improvised, but it’s surprisingly solid~
-The author’s experience never fails
But surprisingly few people were looking forward to it.
Instead, the audience was packed with viewers who distrusted Name’s gaming skills.
-You can’t beat this, but you’re still stubborn
-Ahem, please respect our host’s choices
-Here we go back to the beginning again
-I’m sick of seeing Ms. YOU DIED lol
-Who’s Yudahi?
-YOU DIED
-Ah lol
-Please stop! At this rate, we’ll all die!
-Where else can you find a streamer this immersed in story mode? Just let her play
She had been able to reach Master in League without a single loss thanks to Hyebam, a bona fide Challenger who had been on her team.
Although she had displayed a diverse range of magical knowledge in World of Arseria, the bottom line was that she had not even properly cleared Part 1.
Her flashes of combat sense when she suddenly went to help Adela in the middle of things were worthy of recognition, but the question of whether she was truly good at the game ‘World of Arseria’ still remained.
Because of this, it was easy to find people in various communities trying to analyze NoName’s skill.
[Why NoName Has Once-in-a-Generation Talent.txt][72]
[Legendary Reaction Speed.gif][122]
[This Girl Is Obviously a Military Mage][84]
[Quietly Overhyped by Her Character Concept][171]
[Let’s Learn About the Broadsword Fencing NoName Uses][108]
[That ‘Streamer’ Is Just a One-Trick Pony Who Dabbles in Magic, lol][47]
Those who held a grudge against her had all sorts of reasons.
For example, they claimed she was someone with extensive magical knowledge who had lied about her age and streamed deliberately to deceive the general public.
Or they claimed that her swordsmanship was pathetic when facing multiple opponents.
Every time comments like that poured into the chat window and online communities, Manager Daesal felt as if her heart were being torn apart.
‘If they’d only seen things from her perspective even once, they couldn’t say that.’
Even the managers, who normally watched the broadcast only through computer or phone screens, logged into their capsules and shared the same field of vision as her.
‘Do they really see this and still think they can fight? Seriously?’
The scene before her was so suffocating that merely looking at it made breathing difficult.
Hundreds of people stood arrayed in formation, led by the Academy dean and the captain of the Bahamut Empire’s guards.
Even knowing it was a game, it was a scale that made it impossible not to feel intimidated. The instinctive fear welling up from deep within chilled the blood.
Even Daesal, who had played World of Arseria for an incomparably long time, could not guarantee NoName’s victory.
That was how hopeless the disparity in strength was.
“Where is Alpherion?”
The golden-haired girl asked with a frown.
Then an elderly scholar who had been holding his breath beside the dean adjusted his monocle and shouted.
“Ha! Do vermin like you even have something called camaraderie?”
At a single gesture, two soldiers crossed through the crowd and slammed someone onto the ground.
“He’s unconscious, but still breathing. If you quietly return the laurel you stole, I’ll graciously hand him over to the Academy infirmary.”
“And then throw us in prison?”
“Shouldn’t you gladly pay for your crimes? You don’t intend to run after escalating things this far, do you?”
There was absolutely no room for compromise between them.
“Ha.”
Everyone was puzzled as they watched Name let out an inexplicable laugh.
She was feeling a sense of familiarity.
Pressure closing in from every direction. A cloying bloodlust that could not be shaken off.
Had they been born in a peaceful era, they might have become the sort of people who exchanged ridiculous jokes over a cup of coffee in a cozy restaurant, but they were enemies who had been fated to oppose one another.
Yet nothing was more foolish than searching for morality in combat and war.
When it came to matters that divided life and death, all that was needed was faith in oneself.
And this was a field Name could dare to claim was the one she was most confident in.
“I’ll take you all on.”
At one point, when the Emperor sought to deal with Princess Estasha, he issued an imperial edict written in blood in place of the lost imperial seal, but—
[Plan to Subjugate the Witch of Jealousy]
[ALL FOR ONE]
The edict calling for a total offensive by every force in the nation was eventually torn to shreds in the princess’s hands.
* * *
Name glimpsed one possibility in Adela.
Adela, who, whenever a specific class was selected, manifested the class combination best suited to it.
In other words, her talent was not limited to daggers.
The character molded for the convenience of the system and story progression was so absurdly overbalanced that calling her a hexagon—or rather, a hundred-sided polygon—would not have been enough.
There were things that effort alone could not accomplish.
Just as a 150-centimeter-tall man could not run faster than a Jamaican track athlete even if he trained for a hundred or a thousand years, there was always a limit to how far one could go.
However, because she had been born with infinite talent from the very beginning, even Name could not see its limits.
If Adela’s experience was accumulated through regression, and if it were possible to hammer experience into every one of her muscle cells, then Name firmly believed that, assuming the hypothesis was true, Adela could defeat Gene Chronicle.
“Haaaaaaap!”
A knight clad in silver armor raised a gleaming greatsword with a short cry.
Even when she saw the knights charging boldly at her, intent on cleaving her torso in two, Name did not retreat.
When facing numerous enemies, running away was always the right choice, but she had not always run away either.
Having entered into a temporary synchronization contract with the Laurel of Life, Name drew out the full power of her aura.
A heavy attack, powerful enough to leave neither flesh nor bone intact, cut through the air.
“Guh-kugh-!”
The knight’s gaze, which had been darting around in search of the girl who had left only afterimages, eventually turned toward his own abdomen.
“That... can’t be...!”
A hand was protruding from the exact center of his solar plexus.
But the instant he realized it was not his own, his life ended pointlessly.
Name withdrew the hand that had pierced sharply between the joints of his armor and obtained the fallen knight’s sword.
[Current penalty (5): -75%]
As if that were not enough, every attack was halved, then halved again, before being fired.
[Current penalty: Attack Power –50%, Defense –50%]
To make matters worse, merely picking up a sword earned her yet another stacked penalty, leaving the viewers dumbfounded.
-Is this penalty for real?
-If only she weren’t a healer...ㅠㅠㅠㅠ If only she weren’t a healer...ㅠㅠㅠㅠ If only she weren’t a healer...ㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-Huh??
-?????
“Surround her, all units!”
At the captain of the guards’ command, dozens of spears were launched toward a single point from within the completely surrounded space, where there was not even room to set foot.
Clang, clang-!
[Cast: Inertia Tensor Adjustment]
Dodging between the blades of death as they abruptly changed direction, she threw a sword and drove it into the knight’s neck.
“Graaagh!”
She snatched up the spear he had dropped, set it right, and swung it in a full circle.
[Cast: Viscosity Adjustment]
[Advanced 1st-Circle Cast: Plasma Frequency Adjustment]
The knights, their feet stuck in the muddy ground made sticky by the rain, made the mistake of withdrawing their spears in their haste.
The instant they allowed even a moment’s distance, she rushed them like a bolt and took their lives one after another.
One had his neck bent ninety degrees, another had both ankles severed, and a third had three spears driven into his side.
As if she did not care about the penalties at all, her movements grew faster and faster.
-Wait, why isn’t the penalty applying?
-Isn’t this a bug?
-No way...
The veteran players began to notice.
Name’s attacks were plainly at a level that should have been impossible under the penalties.
“What are you all doing! Can’t you stop that bitch right now!”
This time, she flew at the knight who appeared to be a squad leader, judging by the way he was shouting at the top of his lungs.
Though he took up a defensive sword form honed by years of habit, Name spun diagonally through the air, causing the attack he had painstakingly thrust forward to go wide.
“What the hell...!”
“Give me your weapon.”
With a clean slash across his face, his heavy body toppled without even being able to let out a scream.
Without even time to catch her breath, Name sharply struck the knight’s wrist and took his sword again.
As Name counted to ten in her head, her eyes moved ceaselessly up, down, left, and right.
[Current penalty (5): -75%]
[Current penalty: Attack Power –50%, Defense –50%]
“Haa... You’re late.”
The penalty notification sound appeared once again.
Name snapped irritably, then wiped the blood from her face.
Even after looking all around, there were no more knights charging at her.
She merely looked pityingly at the guards, who stared at her with bloodshot eyes while their arms and legs trembled.
Perhaps because the bloodstains had spread even farther, the Academy students trembled with fear.
“Hah-hah.”
-?
-?
-That sudden laugh is fucking terrifying
-Is the host a psycho?
At last, Name clutched her stomach and snickered, then turned expressionless again as she looked at the enemies.
“I really screwed up the coding. What am I going to do?”
Whoosh-!
She even caught an arrow flying toward her head with her bare hand.
Name counted another number with her lips.
Ten... nine... eight...
And before the count even reached zero, Name picked up a bow sprawled on the ground, nocked an arrow, imbued it with mana, and fired.
“Gyaaah!”
The archer’s corpse, with the arrowhead lodged squarely in its forehead, fell over the cliff below.
[Current penalty (5): -75%]
[Current penalty: Attack Power –50%, Defense –50%]
Once again, a stern warning sound appeared, informing her that a healer could not even equip a bow.
[‘Yakgwa’ donated 10,000 won!]
-Could it be that switching to a new weapon makes even the main penalty disappear until the notification sound goes off?
“Bingo.”
At the sharp viewer’s observation, her blood-stained lips moved slightly.